Cairo, home to over 16 million residents, is estimated to produce some 10,000 tones of rubbish each day. Remarkably, some 60% of Cairo’s garbage is collected, mostly by informal garbage collectors known as the Zabaleen. The Zabaleen use the most simple but effective methods to keep Cairo’s street clean.

Zabaleen, an Arabic word meaning Garbage collectors, is a term that has come to refer to a community of Coptic Christians, who live in the Moqattam village near the informal settlement of Manshiyat Nasser, and specialize in waste collection. The group traces its origins to the 1950s the community of Coptic Christians from Upper Egypt who settled in Moqattam and raised pigs, who would eat much of the organic waste they collected.

Earning less than a dollar a day on average, the Zabaleen can usually be seen on donkey carts collecting waste across the city, from Cairo’s poorest informal settlements to its affluent leafy suburbs. After collecting the waste, the Zabaleen bring it back to areas such as Moqattam, where it is separated or sorted. The Zabaleen reuse or recycle approximately an astounding 85% of all the waste that they collect, at a fraction of the cost of the modern waste management systems, which can recycle just 70% of all material.

In 2003, the Egyptian government announced plans to develop a “modern” waste collection system for Cairo, hiring three European waste management companies for the job. However, the plan collapsed after one year of operation, the primary reason being the inability of these companies to compete with the Zabaleen who on average earn less than a dollar a day.

The Zabaleen have attracted international attention, with numerous documentaries and news reports being made on their craft as well as their dire living conditions. As garbage collectors, the Zabaleen come from the lowest socio-economic tier of Egyptian society. In addition to their poor living conditions, the Zabaleen face major health conditions due to the nature of their work, particularly tetanus and skin diseases. In recent years both local and international NGOs have made efforts to help improve health and living conditions in many Zabaleen communities.

Garbage Dreams – is a film that chronicles the lives of Cairo’s Zabaleen children

However, in response to the 2009 H1N1 influenza commonly referred to as Swine flu, the Egyptian government controversially ordered the culling of all swine populations in Moqattam, directly impacting the livelihoods of some 70,000 Zabaleen. The incident sparked major tensions between the government and the Zabaleen. In the aftermath of the culling, many news reports indicated a significant increase in garbage waste in the city, as the Zabaleen raised pigs to eat the organic waste they collect.

Although much has been written about the Zabaleen and the vitally important services they provide, the Egyptian government has not incorporated these groups and their expertise into developing a sustainable solution to Cairo’s rapidly expanding waste collection needs. The story of the Zabaleen highlights the ingenuity of informal services and the need for government authorities to see such communities as allies in building an effective waste management system to better serve all the citizens of Cairo.

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